Oh Magnified Plaid (AKA MxPx), how I love thee...
unfortunately right now this song is all too true.
Today sucks. Straight up, nothing more to say, today was a day from Hell.

Computer screen is broken (as I type this, I'm missing about an 1/8th of my screen so I have to keep scrolling so the text is in the one sweet spot that I can still see.

I'm in a bad mood, I have been the past couple days. I'm tired, I'm drained, I'm stressed, and I just want this to be done. I don't know what "this" is, exactly, but it needs to stop.

I'm broke and have a broken computer...and strong need for anti-Ds...this will be interesting...food isn't that important, right?

"Can't Live until you die" - Sixx AM
"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature." - Colossians 3
"I feel it deep within. It's just beneath the skin. I must confess that I feel like a monster" - Skillet
"Dying to ourselves is something we must do. We must die to ourselves to pull through" - Stutterfly
"For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin." - Romans 6

So people who have talked to me recently can tell you that I've been a bit pre-occupied with death. Maybe it's because my hand is covered in dead skin that has mutated my fingerprints into...well, a blob Yay for playing bass all weekend at a Church Retreat. Perhaps it's the fact that a week ago I lost track of time, accidentally got drunk, and then looked at old pictures of my childhood...back when my sister was still alive. It could be that it's just that time of year: the leaves are turning brown, flowers are dying, and with them summer is giving way to fall. It might even be the fact that this is my last year of college and therefore the beginning of the end of an era. A chapter in my life is, well, fading into darkness and I want to finish off my bucket list before the heart monitor flatlines.

Whether this is another potential cause or a result is irrelevant, but along with this pre-occupation with death I've been thinking about those two Bible passages mentioned above a lot. I can't tell you the number of times I've attempted suicide (continuing with this metaphorical/spiritual morbid imagery), but I just won't die. I want to, and sometimes I've even been in a coma in the ICU for days, weeks, months on end. But the demonic physicians are skilled, and they always manage to stabilize me.

Skew to this (in the mathematical sense of the word, meaning two lines in a 3-dimensional space that do not share a common plane) is the notion of my identity in Christ (see Ephesians 2 and Romans 8). Assuming I am God's Creation and  the infusion of the Holy Spirit into my being restores my image-bearing attribute, who I am in Christ is who I really am--in an ultimate reality sort of way rather than an existential sort of way. Therefore when I'm bogged down with sin...or even just the stresses of life that keep me from giving my all to God (which is a weak/stupid excuse, but one I often use) then I really am being not myself.

While the above might be good food for thought, or even a good "huh, I hadn't thought of it like that" moment for some, I doubt it's anything terribly earth-shattering. The earth-shattering part comes in when you ask (and hopefully answer) the question of, "So, if this isn't who I am, who then, Am I?"

The question of "Who Am I?"* is difficult enough to answer in even what I've called the "existential way" (which is sort of a misnomer, but I'm going to continue using it), much less the ultimate reality sort of way. How does one search for this? There are no uniform ways of searching for the self (despite what certain well-intentioned-but-nonetheless-awful Christian authors will try to tell you), and therefore there are no mathematical formulae or logical processes by which one can find one's true self. In many ways, it seems to be a lost cause...

Except in the moments it doesn't matter and you just don't care, it all makes sense. When your fingers are bleeding, your wrist locked up and refuses to keep going. Your voice hoarse. Pouring yourself into forgetting the world. Leading worship for an audience of One. My body is broken, bloody, bruised, sore, (a bit smelly,) and spent. It was totally worth it. Unfortuantely, in those moments of just not caring about the question, yeah, you find the answer, but since you don't care you promptly forget and try to remember what chords are next (or let your fingers decide which bass riff will sound good, regardless of what's written) and can't remember the answer to the question when it's all done. So I'm still back to square one, except I'm a bit deafer and in pain. Still worth it.


The Punk Christian sends his Love.




*To hopingforasomeday: no, I will not accept "You are a Child of God" as an identity, because it is really no different than any other relational attributes the boy in your story mentioned and still has no implications for one's so-called "calling in life," which is, in this case, the point of the question.